Textile fabrics, such as those made from nylon, wool, cotton, polyester, rayon and blends used in the garment industry often shipped in large rolls of 3, 4, 8 or 12 foot lengths, and 6–24 inches in diameter, for example. Textile fabrics used as carpet underlayments and as reinforcements in polymer matrix composites, are similarly packaged. Typically, a wound roll is wrapped with plastic in a manual wrapping process. The plastic wrap helps to maintain moisture protection for the fabric during shipment and storage. Moisture protection is important since many glass reinforcement fabrics include sizings or coatings which are susceptible to wet out or blocking. Wet out occurs when the resin in the sizing or coating reacts with water to cause the resin to become soluble or react with the water molecules. In blocking, the resin which wets out acts as an adhesive to join adjacent layers of the fabric in the roll into a solid mass or block. Accordingly, moisture contamination in certain types of coated or sized fabric can lead to expensive damage to textile goods.
Once fabric rolls are wrapped in plastic they are often placed in specially made corrugated boxes for shipment. The cost of both plastic wrapping and corrugated boxes represents a significant portion of the overall cost of a fabric roll. Accordingly, there is a need for a moisture resistant packaging for fabric rolls which is more cost effective than plastic wrap and a corrugated box. In addition, there is a present need to enhance fabric roll packaging so that end users can reuse the packaging for partial rolls.